


Noir Valley

by Krivoklatsko



Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: Detective Noir, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-23
Updated: 2016-03-23
Packaged: 2018-05-28 13:50:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6331678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krivoklatsko/pseuds/Krivoklatsko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Farmer is a Noir Detective trying to escape what he's done for Joja Corp.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Noir Valley

Yeah, I'd thought about retiring. I'd thought about it for the better part of a decade. Spent a long time at my desk, thinking about the case I'd just closed. Long enough a supervisor came by to stare at me menacingly. Only, I realized I wasn't menaced. There wasn't anything left to take from me, no more threats that hadn't been carried out yet. I opened the Old Man's letter right in front of my boss.

"Hey, Boss," I asked, "You ever wish someone would die and will you a plot of land in paradise?"

He didn't smile, because the joke wasn't my life anymore. It was his.

I bought tickets to a far away place. Small town, low profile. I thought I'd hung up my hat for good. Even took a long look at the apartment before I turned off the lights. Lingered a little after, seeing how the shadows buried that place. When I put New York in my rear view, I smiled a little.

Then I met her. 

Abigail. 

A dark and brooding type in a town full of smiles. There are no contradictions in this world. Only lies. And if you can't see that, you're blind like I was. We're blind because we didn't want to see that dark corner anymore. We're staring at the truth and denying it.

Or we were.

You and I are alone now. I'm on the run, and you're reading my last words, typed out on a mechanical printer, wrapped in plastic, and tied to a seagull. Unconventional times, my friend. But if you really have read this far, you know too much. You'd better start running.

I met Abigail on the first day of Spring. The mayor introduced us, in a roundabout way. He was on my grandfather's doorstep, talking about bright new beginnings and shipping and the small farm the old man had left me. He pointed into town and said the name "Pierre" right after my hangover wore off.

"Pierre sells seeds."  
Seeds, I realized. Like a farmer would need. Like me.

And it was at Pierre's, walking the isles and examining packages and learning how to live a new life, that I suddenly encountered a bit of the old one.  
Abigail. A-bi-gail. Purple hair. The look of a woman who doesn't know she's lost. It looks like innocence. You don't live as long as I do without realizing that it's mischeif. And if you survive, you don't stay sane without visiting a church.

Abigail, from the book of Samuel, who said to David, "my lord will not have on his conscience the staggering burden of needless bloodshed."

Of course, we don't live in a story. There's no god staying my hand. Only the wicked look of this devil woman, her smile hiding but still there, undoing all modesty in me.  
She whispered, "Do you believe the spirits of the dead can talk to us?"

I didn't have a chance to answer. Her father, Pierre, snapped some instructions from behind the counter. He saw in me what I saw in her, and he didn't like it as much as I did. But he sold me seeds. Money was our common language. The mayor dealt in goods, shipping. The others dealt in services, like the occasional favor. That was how I fit into the town.

They didn't give me a warm welcome on any principle but humanity's need to work together, our need to survive. And I was the one and only farmer in town.

I thought the fresh air would lighten my soul. Turns out, there's nothing like hard work under God's sun to bring out the cynic in a man. And I hadn't really hammered my sword into a ploughshare.  
The colt stayed strapped under my shirt, the .22 in my sock, and the switchblade in my sleeve.

It was purely a precaution. I knew, no matter what I tried to leave behind, some thug from New York would decide I owed him something. And maybe, just maybe, that something was worth more than the gas to reach me. Or maybe they'd hear about the diamond I'd found in the rough. Abigail, that succubus born in human skin, her lips like black velvet, her curious eyes finding the shadows and seeing every sin, her teeth shining whenever she smiled at a naughty thing.

I wouldn't learn until later that she'd seen into my past, maybe through one of her crystal balls, or by communing with the many dead haunting me. 

It was the 23rd of Spring. I spent my day's energy chopping trees in the yard. The pond I'd chosen to relax by was half-way across town. And the rain poured without warning, like all the angels suddenly cast their buckets aside in rebellion. That was where I found Abigail.

Or, she me.  
"Have you ever killed anyone before?"  
I was caught off guard, not by her seeing that in me, but by her noticing it at all- that black mark that only the wicked can see.  
"Have you?" I returned  
Her head shook.  
"No. No one deserves to be killed."

She was a little young. She could have asked out of wonder, or sheer curiosity.

"I agree," I nodded, "Still. Sometimes it happens. Two hungry savages, one scrap of meat. Someone gets to eat."  
It was a normal conversation. I'd forgotten, in our little human connection, that she wasn't normal.  
"Do you think the spirits of the dead can talk to us?"  
I didn't answer  
"Like, with words?"  
"Maybe with screams," I admitted, "Anger, and anguish."

Abigail, you sweetheart. What made you talk to a man like me? Whoever you are, I hope you've found this note in Pelican Town, in the serene, carefree land I first saw when I stepped off the bus.

Or in that meadow beside the pond, sitting in the rain beside her. That was the best moment of my wretched life. Abigail, her hair sleek with rain, fish leaping from the water to kiss the sky, the sound of wind chimes turning to rain chimes, the pond dancing in the downpour, warm water splashing against my skin, dripping from my hat, Linus, the old fool, singing and playing his ukulele, a sweet and sorrowful tune.

Everything hurt. But it was only the pain of the past, like all of your muscles relaxing at once, and realizing they really needed to.

I wished... I prayed to God for the souls of my friends, that heaven could just be that moment, because by god they'd earned a long rest.

Abigail, her sad, tired eyes contrasted on that peaceful place. What hell was behind her? What dead haunted her dreams? The rain looked like tears on that mournful face. The question vexed me more than the woman, for once- Though I've been a sucker before to a dame in distress.  
It was different this time.  
No.  
It was always different.  
And I was always The Fool.  
Somehow I learned about her fascination with amethysts, and about a mine full of them.

But not about the monsters.

The tight corridors were just another New York alleyway; The rocks, just trash cans; Though the pick and the sword were new tools.

And the monsters? Well... I guess life at Joja Corp had its perks. If you follow in my tracks, skip the mines.

But there were Amethysts there, and so there I was, digging myself through Dante's Inferno with no guide, all to bring a smile to Abigail, my new colossus, a mighty woman with a torch.  
And me, the homeless, tempest-tost. Only, the tempest was her eyes, and her smile was the golden door, always in the rain.

She spent the sunny days indoors. But Summer, the 27th, as we made our preparations for Fall- there she was, her eyes sparkling, reflecting the fire of an Amethyst, her smile beaming. And when she looked up at me, into me, I forgot all about the Big Apple. Now she was the Apple of my eye. And I'd found a new home.

Really, though. Spend a day running before you read the next page.


End file.
